Montgomery County Constables Learn Not To Tangle With Bicyclists (From Huge Law Firms)

Kendall Gray, the bicycle-rights crusader who received a ticket from a Montgomery County Constable’s deputy for allegedly riding too close to the center stripe of FM 149, won his day court last week.

But for Gray, that is not enough.

He still wants an apology from the department and the deputy, whom Gray says nearly crashed into him when the deputy buzzed past Gray honking his horn before slamming on his brakes and cutting Gray off.

“I’d be in jail if I had done that to him,” Gray writes on his blog. “Only fair that he should have to clear his name ….”

Gray told Hair Balls that he appeared in court last week to contest the ticket he was issued for allegedly riding in the lane and not on the shoulder. The law requiring a cyclist to ride along the shoulder only applies to streets that are more then 14-feet wide, and the stretch of road Gray was pulled over on was only 11-feet wide.

“I had called the DA and said, ‘You’re either going to dismiss it because it’s not a violation or we’ll try it. I encourage you to look at it; this is not like your other cases,’” says Gray, an attorney with Andrews Kurth. “Fortunately, they did. The DA actually went out and took pictures of the road and it’s just not possible for it to have been a violation.”

In a matter of moments that morning in court, Gray’s ticket was dismissed.

Now Gray wants an apology from the constable’s office.

“The only dissatisfying thing is that there’s still a deputy constable, a chief deputy constable and a head constable out there who by all appearances have no idea what the transportation code allows or requires with regard to cyclists,” says Gray. “And that’s kind of the point of this whole thing.”

Gray wants them to say, “Look, we were wrong, we’re sorry. And that gets it done. Motorists, including motorists with guns and badges, are required to slow down and execute a safe pass just as they would if I were a tractor or a horse trailer. And whether [the apology] is genuine or not, at least it shows they have been informed of what the law actually requires.”